Battle of the Champions (RBG Vignette)

[ub3r_n3rd]

THE BATTLE OF THE CHAMPIONS

 

Figures: Unarmored Hordesman & Armored Hordesman

Manufacturer: Red Box Games

Base: WoldStand

Material: Trollcast (Resin)

 

WIP Thread Located here.

 

Here's the Gallery to see what everyone did

 

Here's the Poll - Vote for your top 3 and only vote one time.

 

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They stood staring each other down in the middle of the bloody and muddy battlefield, rain pouring and slicking everything in sight. The two champions, their armies spread out behind them screaming at the tops of their lungs. The champions covered in blood and gore from those pathetic fools who had stood before them. It came down to this, to this one moment in time... to this last battle between them to decide the war...

 

They circled each other slowly, sized each other up. The axes-wielding champion, calculating and calm, takes a deep breath, looks over to the large rock to his right and grins wickedly to himself. The armored champion raises his weapon and plays to his crowd of warriors, supremely confident in his opponent's impending demise.  Suddenly, they both rush forward with blood curdling war-cries to their gods to do battle!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was a really fun project which I am entering into the RBG contest over on the WAMP forum and it is being sponsored by Tre Manor himself. 

 

Thank you to everyone in the WIP thread for giving me honest feedback and great ideas, I used a lot of them on these figures and couldn't have done it without you.

 

Special thanks goes out to Thrym as he supplied me with the awesome base from his new online store called "WoldStand."

 

Comments and Critiques are welcomed and appreciated!

 

ETA: Collage for the Contest that Thrym was nice enough to help me with.

 

Edited September 3, 2014 by ub3r_n3rd

[Mutilatedlips]

One of them has that "He's gonna kill you" look straight out of a horror movie. A bit scary to me. Nice job.

[Thrym]

 

Special thanks goes out to Thrym as he supplied me with the awesome base from his new online store called "WoldStand."

 

ETA: Collage for the Contest that Thrym was nice enough to help me with.

 

battle_of_champions.jpg

 

 

You're welcome for the WoldStand base and the graphic work.  I added it as an example for the hex bases.

 

Great job.

Edited August 18, 2014 by Thrym

[ub3r_n3rd]

Saw that you added it in your store as an example of work with your bases, thanks for the huge compliment and putting it up there!

[Mr Melons]

This came out great man!!!! Love the base. It looks like they met on a rainy day on some begotten battlefield. One thing though.....they are far too clean for being out in a muddy area. The blood and gore are perfect but there isn't much mud on them. Maybe add a bit of the resin sand to the cloak and loin cloth and paint it muddy so that it gives that caked on look. Toss a few splatters of mud on the thighs et voila.

 

One of them has that "He's gonna kill you" look straight out of a horror movie. A bit scary to me. Nice job.

I was thinking more like....

Dark Armored guy: "Your shoe laces are untied!"

No Shirt guy: "Huh?"

Dark Armored guy: *raises morningstar*

Edited August 18, 2014 by Mr Melons

[Adrift]

This came out great man!!!! Love the base. It looks like they met on a rainy day on some begotten battlefield. One thing though.....they are far too clean for being out in a muddy area. The blood and gore are perfect but there isn't much mud on them. Maybe add a bit of the resin sand to the cloak and loin cloth and paint it muddy so that it gives that caked on look. Toss a few splatters of mud on the thighs et voila.

 

One of them has that "He's gonna kill you" look straight out of a horror movie. A bit scary to me. Nice job.

I was thinking more like....

Dark Armored guy: "Your shoe laces are untied!"

No Shirt guy: "Huh?"

Dark Armored guy: *raises morningstar*

 

I agree with this assessment, the amount of gore for a battlefield is great and your write up gave me the shivers. The cleanliness of both pieces however is a weakness of the piece with respect to the effort you put in making the base appear (fantastically IMO) as a muddy battlefield. 

 

As an added suggestion for blood, heavily thinning your mixture with water and stroking it back from the blood you have already placed would add some extra realism to the appearance of the blood along the weapons. 

 

Now since you're going the 'competitive' route I'm going to offer up some additional thoughts. Given the relative positioning of the minis, did you consider having the barbarian looking down perched up on a small rock face looking down at the armored guy who's kind of looking up? I think it might have added some additional drama to the scene and would further enhance the movement you've already captured in the piece. This might explain why my eye is so drawn to the armored guy rather than wanting to focus on both pieces.

 

You have good use of color contrast utilizing the complimentary colors of red and green between the two miniature's 'loincloths' but I think reversing the color choices would have helped draw more attention to the barbarian; in effect you could have created a color (temperature) contrast between the two warriors by making the barbarian 'cooler' toned and the knight 'warmer' toned.

 

As with any competitive level painter, I'd also like to encourage you to go for greater light/dark contrast between highlights and shadows.

 

If any of this was 'over the top' I apologize, but I got a lot of great support/encouragement from a many fantastic painters when I started working toward a 'competition' level painter. I still feel like I'm working on it. I just felt the need to push you the way I've been pushed b/c it's not as much about brushwork as it is about planning and what goes on in your head!

[malefactus]

I find something appealing about letting the Head Honchos fight it out while their followers look on. Be that as it may, you did a FINE job on the Warriors; AND  probably THE BEST mud base I've seen. VERY WELL DONE!

[ub3r_n3rd]

This came out great man!!!! Love the base. It looks like they met on a rainy day on some begotten battlefield. One thing though.....they are far too clean for being out in a muddy area. The blood and gore are perfect but there isn't much mud on them. Maybe add a bit of the resin sand to the cloak and loin cloth and paint it muddy so that it gives that caked on look. Toss a few splatters of mud on the thighs et voila.

 

One of them has that "He's gonna kill you" look straight out of a horror movie. A bit scary to me. Nice job.

I was thinking more like....

Dark Armored guy: "Your shoe laces are untied!"

No Shirt guy: "Huh?"

Dark Armored guy: *raises morningstar*

 

 

Thanks! Good cal on the mud, I've already entered it into the contest so for next time I'll keep that in mind.

 

Hah, that's a funny take on it. 

 

I agree with this assessment, the amount of gore for a battlefield is great and your write up gave me the shivers. The cleanliness of both pieces however is a weakness of the piece with respect to the effort you put in making the base appear (fantastically IMO) as a muddy battlefield. 

 

 

As an added suggestion for blood, heavily thinning your mixture with water and stroking it back from the blood you have already placed would add some extra realism to the appearance of the blood along the weapons. 

 

Now since you're going the 'competitive' route I'm going to offer up some additional thoughts. Given the relative positioning of the minis, did you consider having the barbarian looking down perched up on a small rock face looking down at the armored guy who's kind of looking up? I think it might have added some additional drama to the scene and would further enhance the movement you've already captured in the piece. This might explain why my eye is so drawn to the armored guy rather than wanting to focus on both pieces.

 

You have good use of color contrast utilizing the complimentary colors of red and green between the two miniature's 'loincloths' but I think reversing the color choices would have helped draw more attention to the barbarian; in effect you could have created a color (temperature) contrast between the two warriors by making the barbarian 'cooler' toned and the knight 'warmer' toned.

 

As with any competitive level painter, I'd also like to encourage you to go for greater light/dark contrast between highlights and shadows.

 

If any of this was 'over the top' I apologize, but I got a lot of great support/encouragement from a many fantastic painters when I started working toward a 'competition' level painter. I still feel like I'm working on it. I just felt the need to push you the way I've been pushed b/c it's not as much about brushwork as it is about planning and what goes on in your head!

 

 

I appreciate all of your comments and critiques here, great stuff. Things I will definitely keep in mind for the next piece I do. My mind was more on the blood/gore on the figures than the mud being placed on them. I tried out a newly developed technique for the blood/gore which uses red paints, Aleene's tacky glue, and tar gel mixed together to get more globby looking blood/gore, which I should've done as you said with the streaks on the weapons. The base is made with browns and water effects to give it the muddy look and I was pretty happy how it turned out as well.

 

As far as the one looking down on a rock, no I didn't want him on top of anything. I like the pose as in my mind's eye he's getting ready to rush in head down at first while the other one is in some sort of pre-celebration where he has his weapon raised and taunting. I also think the knight is more flamboyant with this snow leopard cloak so he stands out more and has the eye drawn to him, but that's all part of his plan to distract his foes. The unarmored guy is more calm and calculating, he acts like he's the honey badger and just doesn't care, but in his mind the battle is already over and he's standing over his foe's corpse. 

 

I thought I had achieved the right amount on contrast, both highlights/shadows and temperatures, apparently the temperatures come through better than the highlights/shadows, so I'll definitely push those up/down more on my next piece. Crazy how the camera can rob some of that stuff from a hard worked piece, always learning is a good thing though.

 

Not over the top at all, I appreciate honest feedback and critiques so thank you very much! 

 

I find something appealing about letting the Head Honchos fight it out while their followers look on. Be that as it may, you did a FINE job on the Warriors; AND  probably THE BEST mud base I've seen. VERY WELL DONE!

 

Thanks for your comments and compliments!

[KruleBear]

Was not sure about the base in your wip, but it turned out nice and the leopard cloak turned out sweet.

 

@Adrift: nice critique.

[Jasonator]

Jay takes out his spotlight, cranks away and shines it around the room !

There he his..Ub3r_N3rd TAKE A BOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

OMG that is INCREDIBLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

THE CROWD BREAKS INTO ROARS AND APPLAUSE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UB3R, UB3R, UB3R, UB3R !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ub3r_n3rd]

Thanks Jay!! 

[Limey72]

Ub3r you really have something special there, the cloak, the skulls the base. Awesomeness indeed sir ;)

[ub3r_n3rd]

Thanks Limey 

[chaoshead]

Yep, turned out very nice sir.

 

The rocks on the base work to break up the open feeling it had before.

 

As stated by others the leopard fur cloak turned out great.

 

The wet mud and blood on the base is very nice as well.

[CashWiley]

Great work, Oob!

 

I totally spaced and forgot the WAMP contest for my Keeper project :(